


My Dread and Dire Suitor

by Snowgrouse



Category: One Thousand and One Nights and Related Fandoms, Original Work, Thief of Bagdad (1940), كتاب ألف ليلة وليلة | Kitaab 'alf layla wa-layla | One Thousand and One Nights
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Androgynous male character, Arranged Marriage, Brief horror, Come play, Crossdressing, Empath, Empathy, Erotic Poetry, Erotica, F/M, Female sexual agency, Feminist Themes, First Time, Free Verse, Hurt/Comfort, Light Bondage, Love Poems, Older Man/Younger Woman, Poetry, Prose Poem, Romance, Sensuality, Telepathic Sex, Telepathy, Tenderness, Undressing, costume porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:03:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4954474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowgrouse/pseuds/Snowgrouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I had another, I told him:</i><br/>Another who had made me believe in magic,<br/>Another who had proved to me<br/>That there was such a thing as love at first sight;<br/>Another who would rescue me from my confinement,<br/>From this marriage my father had arranged for me,<br/>A man who would defy death itself to set me free:<br/>My another was,<br/>I told him in no uncertain terms,<br/>The key to my cage. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>"Oh, no, no, no,"</i><br/>My dread and dire suitor crooned<br/>As he stepped before me in all white,<br/>In the silken suit of the bridegroom.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"Your another is a man--no, a </i><b>boy</b> I know well,"<br/>He purred as he strolled over to me a pard,<br/>Slinking his hips,<br/>His each step soft and precise;<br/>Had he had a tail,<br/>He would have curled it,<br/>I'm sure.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>"He would have chained your soul</i><br/>By binding it to custom,<br/>My sweetheart, my sweet love,<br/>My one who so for freedom yearns!"<br/>He laughed,<br/>His cruelty as sharply honed as his gait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Dread and Dire Suitor

**Author's Note:**

> Something a little different: Jaffar/Princess in free verse.

_"I am going to make you happy,"  
My dread and dire suitor said,  
Offering to me riches from his coffers,  
Wrapping about my neck gold bands  
Gold bands about my wrists as if manacles,  
With golden chains hanging from them  
As if reins to lead me by._

_Why, the gold-embroidered pink dress  
He had his maids tuck me into  
Felt like his sculpture, yes, a sculpture  
A masterpiece of the sadist's art:  
That of a golden net  
Wrapped tightly about a woman's flesh  
Until it spilled out of its bonds,  
Ready for him to caress, to take._

_And within the palace he had me carried into,  
Its gilt bands of prayers  
Running from wall to wall as they proclaimed his glory  
Asking God to extend his life and his reign,  
Were but a cage closing around my very being._

_As I sat on the bridal bed  
I kicked my shoes off so violently  
They clattered into the corner.  
At that moment,  
I wanted nothing more than to hurt him,  
And I knew what with._

_I had another, I told him:  
Another who had made me believe in magic,  
Another who had proved to me  
That there was such a thing as love at first sight;  
Another who would rescue me from my confinement,  
From this marriage my father had arranged for me,  
A man who would defy death itself to set me free:  
My another was,  
I told him in no uncertain terms,  
The key to my cage._

_"Oh, no, no, no,"  
My dread and dire suitor crooned  
As he stepped before me in all white,  
In the silken suit of the bridegroom._

_"Your another is a man--no, a **boy** I know well,"  
He purred as he strolled over to me a pard,  
Slinking his hips,  
His each step soft and precise;  
Had he had a tail,  
He would have curled it,  
I'm sure._

_"He would have chained your soul  
By binding it to custom,  
My sweetheart, my sweet love,  
My one who so for freedom yearns!"  
He laughed,  
His cruelty as sharply honed as his gait._

_"He would have made your body suffer  
By making it bear babe after babe  
Until it fell down dead from exhaustion  
Him having never learned how to love it--  
**His** would have been the truer cage."_

_"A cage truer?"  
I laughed through my tears,  
Through my fear as he sat beside me on the bed.  
"You lie."_

_He tried to take my hand but I flinched,  
Raised my hand and with one sweep of it,  
Encompassed the palace, the jewellery,  
My vulva-pink dress and his semen-white suit,  
And the terror of his erection now hiding within it._

_"For is this not a prison?"  
I asked him,  
"And am I to believe that you, somehow  
\--Through your witchcrafts, perhaps?--  
Knew how to love me?"_

_"Yes," he said as he picked up my chin._

_His eyes terrified me,  
The zenith stare of them vertignious;  
I felt as I had as a child on a swing,  
My stomach lurching as I had swung higher and higher,  
The distinct thought of  
"Soon I will slip,  
Soon I will let go of the ropes,  
Soon I shall fly out  
And be taken up to the heavens  
By the angels--"  
Deafeningly loud in my mind._

_Still he edged closer, closer,  
And even if the look in his eyes was kind,  
His thin rake's moustache,  
His crooked teeth  
And the lewd, disgusting, debauched gloss of his mouth  
Made nausea curl in my guts._

_I would have slapped him,  
And raised my hand to do so,  
But could not,  
For now,  
He was kissing my tears._

_He was kissing my tears,  
Not caring if my kohl stained his mouth black,  
Not caring if he ruined the silk of his turban  
As he wiped my face with its tails,  
Or, indeed, that I ruined the silk of his tunic  
As I wept against his chest,  
He cradling my head against his heart._

_He held me like a parent holds a child  
To whom he has just forbidden something  
That he knows was poisonous to her,  
And while deep within, the child knows this,  
Her pain is still greater and she keeps on weeping, screaming,  
Her rage and her disappointment flooding out as tears._

_Thus, I wept long, out of spite,  
Exactly so that I might stain him thus,  
Inflicting all the selfishness of my desire,  
All my stubbornness upon his body,  
So as to rob him of his dignity at least a little._

_When I had finished,  
His turban had unravelled completely,  
And I saw that his hair was streaked with silver  
All the way from his scalp to his shoulders,  
And that it had receded far back onto the top of his head:  
Another wave of self-pity washed over me,  
Another series of sobs  
As I beheld a man so old,  
A man more than twice my age._

_He smiled at me gently,  
But the desire in his eyes  
Meant that I could only see  
An idol pagan, a leering satyr,  
Expected him to expose his genitals to me  
The way those idols always do--  
Joy for a man revelling,  
But to a woman a threat,  
To avert the evil eye, they said._

_But now I beheld two evil eyes staring at me,  
Still staring, ever staring._

_"Quite," he chuckled and caressed my hair.  
"But I would you saw both eye and phallus as friends,  
Your personal guardians, protectors:  
You bring but joy to them when they behold you,  
And it is but joy I would bring to you, my child,  
My beloved, beloved child,  
Joy by my body and by my soul."_

_Stunned, I reared back,  
Crawled back in my shock  
So that no part of him was touching me,  
My veil sliding off my head as I moved.  
"Have you heard me? All my thoughts? All this time?"_

_"Yes."  
He nodded,  
And now I could tell  
He was trembling a little, too;  
His breathing a little strained from withheld tears.  
He glanced at my veil and let out a small, wet laugh;  
He picked it up and used it to wipe his face in turn--  
**Fair is fair, wouldn't you say?**  
He spoke to me without words._

_I had never realised how long his eyelashes were;  
I had thought the long shadows of them but kohl,  
But now they lay sweeping his cheeks,  
The gloss of tears rendering them the wings of ravens._

_Ravens, the birds who fed on the bodies of fallen soldiers  
No matter if they were not entirely dead yet,  
Pecking away at them while they were still groaning.  
And like a scavenger,  
Would he now feast upon the ruins of my virtue--_

_"Enough!" he cried,  
And as he reached out and took my hand,  
I let him._

_"Is this--"  
And he gestured towards his tears,  
"Not enough proof that your pain  
Is my pain also;  
That in giving it to you  
I am giving it to myself?"_

_I stared at my hands, quiet,  
Not sure if what I was feeling  
Was shame or defiance or both.  
I stared at my bracelets, stared;  
Then held them up to him  
Like the manacles they were._

_"Then, my lord, unbind me,"  
I said, looking him in the eye._

_He but laughed, laughed;  
And as he began to undo them,  
His smile was so radiant  
I could not help but respond to it  
With a smile of my own,  
Something warm expanding in my heart,  
Expanding so that it hurt my chest  
And I could barely breathe._

_I closed my eyes,  
And when I opened them,  
It was not the same woman I saw  
Reflected in his laughing, loving eyes:  
For behold: now my delight answered his._

_He rested his forehead against mine,  
And I let him._

_He undid all the rest of my jewellery,  
And I let him._

_He undid the clasps of my dress,  
And I let him._

_Chaste, gentle, almost demure, even  
He laid himself down upon the bed before me,  
Clothed, waiting,  
As if he were the virgin and not I,  
The yearning in his eyes now a sea I wanted to step into,  
Wade deep into, swim into the sweet warmth of his desire, swim--  
Oh, but I wanted to **drown** in him!_

_This pagan adoration,  
This blasphemous devotion,  
This holy ablution  
Now enclosed me in its embrace._

_And it was I who first touched him,  
I who released his sex and took it in my hand,  
I who took his joy-cry into my mouth with my kiss._

_"I would only ever bind you in love,"  
He whispered against my breasts,  
His body trembling, straining  
As I sat astride him  
And took him inside of myself;_

_"Only with these caresses,  
My sweet Yassamin,  
My sweet, sweet Yassamin,"  
He recited,  
Accompanying his love-songs  
With his fingertips playing soft upon my back._

_"I would only ever garland you  
The way you now garland me,  
Oh, but you **embower** me with your love,"  
He moaned as I released my hair to curtain his face,  
Jasmine petals fluttering onto his cheeks like fresh tears,  
But now tears of happiness and joy;_

_**'Oh, Yassamin, please believe me,  
My sweet, sweet Yassamin--'**  
And these last words were spoken  
Only mind to mind  
As we lay there  
Mouth to mouth,  
Cock to cunny,  
Heart to heart,  
Soul to soul._

_"Do, then, my beloved;"  
I said,  
"Do bind me,"  
I whispered._

_Now a woman as I lay down on my back  
The foolish girl in me gone  
As he bound my wrists with his sash  
And laid his warm weight over me,  
Kissed me and caressed me in my bonds  
Until I was laughing, screaming, shrieking,  
Giggling hysterically into his mouth._

_"There is nothing of me and mine  
That does not belong to you also,  
My queen,"  
He murmured against my cheek between tussles._

_"And there is nothing of me and mine  
That does not belong to you also,  
My king,"  
I answered him._

_And as he felt it, knew it,  
Understood that I meant it,  
I could feel him almost bursting from his happiness--  
And how his happiness burst out indeed,  
As with a madman's cackle,  
He picked up my jewellery and my veil,  
Wrapped them about himself  
And posed for me a queen!_

_I laughed until I was bent in half,  
Laughed so hard I was hurting myself  
(And thus, him!)  
Until he had to pin me down and take me,  
Take each and every part of my body with his kisses,  
Undressing me of the last few traces  
Of the chill of my virginity  
With the skill of his mouth and his fingers._

_All naive beliefs in djinn and princes  
He washed from me so utterly  
With the blinding, crashing waves of ecstasy  
His lithe hips, his heavy hips,  
His sweet and slow and rolling hips now gave me  
As he gifted me with his love's blows._

_There were other bindings after that;  
Gold bracelets snapped together about his wrists  
And a woman riding him long into the night  
Until all the candles were burnt out._

_And there, his lips whispering  
That it was not the moonlight  
That now bathed us in white  
"But you, Yassamin;  
But your own radiance like that of the moon;"_

_Yet I traced the white shimmers  
Of sperm upon his lips  
And declared  
That I but reflected the light of my Lord._

_"Forgive me,"  
He murmured later  
As we lay side by side,  
Our hair entwined,  
Our legs entwined,  
Our hands entwined over his heart;  
"I was too rash and cruel  
In my claiming of you thus,  
I know now."_

_"I forgive you, if you forgive me for being a fool,"  
I kissed against his ear,  
"And if you promise to never speak of the beggar-prince again;"  
For now I shuddered as I thought  
Of how soon that fool  
Would have again lost his kingdom  
If he should have,  
Even for a moment,  
Regained it;  
Of how soon I, too,  
Would have become a beggar--  
Or but a memory,  
A gravestone by his side._

_"Who?"  
My wicked usurper asked me  
And I could feel him smiling into my hair.  
"The only beggar here was I;  
And it was only your love  
That finally clothed him,  
Only your kisses that nourished him,  
Only your embrace that gave him shelter,  
A place to call a home."_

_I laughed, even if I was half-asleep.  
"The thought of you begging for me,  
Of you crawling at my feet  
Pleases me a great deal;"  
A thought so bold and so unladylike  
It made me spark with my love's power,  
Pooled hot in my cunny as desire._

_"You are insatiable!"  
He exclaimed in mock-shock,  
But even then,  
I could feel his hips  
Twitching against my belly in delight.  
"Tomorrow,"  
He murmured as he squeezed my hand._

_"And all tomorrows,"  
I murmured and nuzzled  
My dread and dire husband's lips,  
Falling into the sweetest of sleeps,  
His heart beating softly against mine._


End file.
